"Folsom Street is a bold and challenging project, but Boulder needs to be bold if we're going to reach our mobility and climate change goals."

This was the signature phrase that appeared in nearly 200 emails to the Boulder City Council in the days before it discussed whether to continue with the controversial "right-sizing" project that removed vehicles lanes on Folsom Street in order to widen bike lanes and install protective buffers.

'Right-sizing' feedback

Public feedback received by Boulder regarding the city's right-sizing lane re-alignment plans for Folsom Street, Iris Avenue, 63rd Street and 55th Street (the latter street having since been dropped).

Folsom Street feedback, from implementation on July 13 to Aug. 25

Positive: 541 / 57%

Negative: 374 / 40%

Neutral: 22 / 2%

Total: 937 / 100%

Folsom Street feedback, overall from May 7 to Aug. 25

Positive: 759 / 51%

Negative: 668 / 45%

Unclear: 39 / 3%

Neutral: 22 / 1%

Mixed: 1 / 0%

Total: 1,489 / 100%

Boulder right-sizing feedback, overall from May 7 to Aug. 25

Negative: 1,010 / 54%

Positive: 792 / 42%

Unclear: 52 / 3%

Neutral: 22 / 1%

Mixed: 3 / 0%

Total: 1,879 / 100%

Source: City of Boulder

These writers were using a form letter provided by People for Bikes, a Boulder-based advocacy group, though many added their own experiences of safer, more secure cycling to their emails.

It was these messages that allowed Go Boulder Manager Kathleen Bracke to tell the City Council on Aug. 25 that of the 950 comments received about the Folsom Street project since it was installed in mid-July, 57 percent were in favor.

In the war of public perception over the right-sizing project — which the City Council decided to continue with some modifications — that number was cheered by cycling advocates, many of whom believe opposition to the project is vocal but overstated, and met with disbelief by those who oppose it.

Overall, beginning in May when the concept was proposed for Folsom, Iris Avenue, 55th Street and 63rd Street in Gunbarrel, feedback to the city through late August about the Folsom stretch was still positive — but less so, with 51 percent approving and 45 percent against.

Yet feedback for the entire right-sizing project — not just Folsom, but the other three Boulder streets as well — over that same period is more negative than positive.

Fifty-four percent of the 1,879 overall comments about plans to re-align the four streets collected on the city's Living Lab website are opposed to the project and 42 percent are in support.

Audrey Eastwood, a north Boulder resident who regularly drives Folsom and opposes the project, said city staffers should have included more context when they told the council that feedback on the Folsom project was 57-percent positive.

"I think they should be totally transparent," she said.

Bracke said that in her presentation to the City Council, she was responding to a specific request about feedback on the Folsom Street corridor since installation.

"That was the question we were asked to answer," she said. "We would never be interested in deceiving or misleading. We're trying to be transparent about the project."

Bracke said the focus of the Aug. 25 study session was how well Folsom has functioned since the lanes were changed, so it made sense to present that feedback.

While Eastwood acknowledges that the support from cyclists is real, she noted that there is no organized group encouraging those who don't like the project to write to council.

"There are so many of us out here," she said. "We have busy lives, and we don't have time to write in."

Without that email push from People for Bikes, the negative comments received by the city after the Folsom lane realignment was in place likely would have held a slight majority.

Transportation planners hope the right-sizing project will encourage more people to ride their bikes, especially families with children, older people and others who haven't felt comfortable riding in traffic, and also improve safety for drivers by lowering speeds.

The feedback includes emails, letters and phone calls to the City Council and transportation staff, comments made through the Inspire Boulder website and comments on social media.

There was nothing secretive about the email campaign seeking support for the project. People for Bikes promoted it on social media and discussed it in the Daily Camera.

"I know there are tens of thousands of people who live, work and ride here who see it as a positive," People for Bikes President Tim Blumenthal said at the time. "We want to make sure that voice is heard."

Councilman: Feedback counts should have been left out

Boulder City Councilman Sam Weaver, who supports continuing the pilot project, said he wished that information had been left out of the presentation entirely.

"I was very unhappy with that piece of the presentation," he said. "The way to judge whether the community is happy or unhappy isn't to count the comments from a self-select group of people. It should not have been included at all."

Weaver said the city should focus more on understanding the impacts and looking for ways to mitigate them rather than tallying support for the project.

"Council is trying to hear from the community and save the most beneficial parts of the project to biker safety while still being responsive to the concerns that we're hearing," he said. "From my read on it, the most negative part is the congestion between Pine and Arapahoe. That's making people angry. And people are also angry about the change to how they make right turns.

"I think what we're hoping for from the transportation staff in the very near term is that they have some proposal for us to review."

Starting Tuesday and continuing all week, road crews will be making changes to Folsom that planners hope will relieve some of the traffic congestion and concerns about right turns, in which the turning vehicle lane and the bike through-lane trade places.

Those include modifications to the painted pavement markings, bollard placements, vegetative landscaping and traffic-signal timing, according to a message from City Manager Jane Brautigam to the City Council.

Mayor: Feedback split not 'terribly relevant'

Boulder Mayor Matt Appelbaum, who long has complained that the city's surveys on a variety of projects are not statistically sound, said he doesn't believe the support for the Folsom project described at the Aug. 25 council meeting was misleading.

"I think all of the feedback has to be put into context," he said. "You tend to only hear from the people who feel the strongest, pro or con, and in the age of the Internet, it's extremely easy to round up opinions. There is obviously a split in the community. Whether it's 58/42 or 49/51, I don't think is terribly relevant."

Appelbaum said feedback is useful, particularly when it is specific in terms of what people like and don't like and how the project could be improved. At the same time, the City Council won't set transportation policy by treating feedback like a vote, he said.

"I don't think council can just do a numerical count of self-select people and say that's what we're going to do," he said. "That's not how it works. We have to look at it holistically."

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